New Comic Releases Feb 14-The Hunt5502

While we should be buying flowers (Right?), many will be heading to comic shops picking up new books... The Hunt, SideWays, a new Artgerm cover, the last issue of Invincible... What else? While only a couple of these may seem appealing to many, there are some good things coming out this week.

What did I miss? What books are you picking up this week, what did you pick up last week. Also, post your pick-ups on or after Wednesday.

Aftershock Comics:

Cold War 1 - In a world where cryonics is a reality, it's curious where the mind goes in different people... For this team over at Aftershock, it's frozen heads waking up to fight "in a war against unknown opponents for unknown reasons, to secure their place in a brave new world that doesn't want them around." What DOES the future have in store from us?

Danger Zone: <-- I don't follow Zombie Tramp, but I know a lot of people collect those books. There are two books coming out this week, Baby Badass and Black Betty, with multiple covers for people to hunt for - regular, bloody variants, risque variants, etc... If you're curious, here are the main covers of both books. Anyplace that carries Zombie Tramp will likely carry both of these and maybe variants.

DC Comics:

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey 19 - A new storyline kicks off this week, "Full Circle", with Batgirl / Babs taking a step back into her role of Oracle a bit, trying to start preventing crimes BEFORE they happen, but Huntress and Black Canary aren't too happy about it. "Her first target? Bringing down the Calculator's intricate network of super-villains." Predictive crime isn't a new thing, but in the world of the Bat-family, let's see how this spins out! I'll be interested to see with Calculator if it ties into crime statistics, analytics, etc.

Dark Knights Rising the Wild Hunt - Scott Snyder and Grant Morrison team up on the script with art from Doug Mahnke to bring The Wild Hunt out of Metal... It's The Dark Knights against The Flash, Cyborg, Raven, and Detective Chimp? What? This is going to be a weird and awesome one, right? We start to get an idea of what's going to follow Metal, too, as we learn what has happened with the Metal Men, and "Challengers' Mountain crackles with dark energy that will release an army of the world's most nightmares into the streets of Gotham City!" I'm guessing this is going to lead into the new Challengers of the Unknown series as well. What will they pack into this one-shot?

Detective Comics 974 - I'm not positive if this is the issue before "Trial of Batwoman" or if they have changed the name to "Knight's Fall", but in the aftermath of what she did last issue, this is a must-read issue, I'm sure. If you haven't read the last issue or the Annual, check them out.

Two Cover options - Guillem March (A) and Rafael Albuquerque (B).

Shade the Changing Girl Wonder Woman Special 1 - "Milk Wars" part three introduces us to Wonder Wife, the corporate-twisted version of Wonder Woman, looking like something out of the 50's. Featuring another amazing cover by Frank Quitely, this chapter also has Shade the Changing Girl, split into three parts, "each representing a different mood, all in service to the perfect and beautiful Wonder Wife. But Happy Shade is starting to sense that not all is right in Wonderland, and she finds something strange staring back at her on the other side of the looking glass." By the way, if you haven't been pick up Milk Wars, each chapter has been featuring a backup story for the new Young Animals book, Eternity Girl. Looks good!

Sideways - Truly a Dark Nights Metal spinoff, the main character, Derek James, falls through "a rift into the dark matter dimension... [and] can create rifts in midair to leap through dimensions at will! But with that much power comes great liability-and cracks are starting to form in the fabric of the space-time continuum..." While this could be a "fun" book, the fact that this spins out of Metal tells us that it will be a bit darker - Metal, dark matter, dark dimension, cracks in space-time, etc... I'm anticipating a bit of a balance, but this could be one to watch.

Suicide Squad 35 - The new storyline, "Hacked", launches this week with the resurrection of Hack, who is being used by someone totake revenge on the Squad.

Two Cover options - Ethan Van Sciver (A) and Andrea Sorrentino (B).

Supergirl 18 - Final issue of the "Plain Sight" storyline with "Kara... pushed to the edge and forced not to stay silent anymore. Supergirl must finally stand as the hero National City needs." Since it's what so many people are digging these days, here's the Stanley Lau AKA Artgerm cover coming out this week.

Titans 20 - With everything going on in the last issues of Titans, it's no surprise that the team is heading on hiatus... or "forced into a hiatus by the Justus League..." Of course, that doesn't mean there's nothing going on, right? Arsenal is investigating a drug on the rise in NYC with his ex, Cheshire, by his side. should be fun, right?

Xena - She's back! Meredith Finch is at the helm, writing the Warrior princess with gorgeous covers by husband David Finch and interior art by Vincente Cifuentes. Familiar or not with the character, I'm sure this will be a fun read for anyone who happens to pick up the series... There are several cover options, from Finch to Cifuentes to virgin, black and white, and blanks...

Image Comics:

Invincible 144 - This is it... The last issue. I feel kind of weird about this one, to be honest. I haven't been keeping up, but I was reading this from the beginning and loved the series more than Walking Dead. I desperately want to get caught up, and I don't want to end. I'm hoping there are more plans for the series. I'm betting there are, especially considering the B cover.

Two Cover options - Ryan Ottley (A) and Cory Walker (B).

Kick-Ass 1 - The NEW Kick-Ass is here, but who is under the mask? Well, if you have read any press over the last several months, you already know, but ignore all of that and just read what Millar and JrJr are putting out there, right? This should be a good read, I think. The book was always a bit over the top, the first volumn being the best of the bunch, but... this is certainly a chance to top everything, and it very well might if it grounds the overall franchise with a fresh batch of characters.

Lots of cover options on this one, but I'm just showing off the main, JrJr cover here...

Marvel Comics:

Captain America 698 - "Out of Time" part one is right here, which leads us toward issue 700... That one will be a DOOZY... Cap is in the future AGAIN, and has to assemble another band of heroes to combat... what? I wasn't expecting Cap to head this direction, but if the book was predictable, it wouldn't a fun, would it? I'm excited to see what's going to happen, especially with issue 700. FYI, if you're interested, there is a Hulk variant for this issue, too.

Star Wars Thrawn 1 - Probably THE most popular character of the Star Wars Expanded Universe has made it into the official (new) Star Wars Canon... Thrawn is getting his origin story in this mini-series by Jody Houser, and should be a doozy with amazing artwork by Luke Ross. It's an adaptation of the Timothy Zahn novel of the same name, but don't let that hold you back from a great read. There are multiple covers available, but here's the main Paul Renaud Cover A.

@dpiercy I think part of it is because it's the different creative teams working on each issue as one-shot-ish stories. That could be impacting the overall cohesion of the storyline. Hopefully, it pulls together well!

@conditionfreak No biggie... I only have one of his covers at the moment, which was a KRS Exclusive. I do like the Thor 705 cover, but probably won't get it. I'm feeling a bit over-saturated by them. It feels like the days when everyone went bonkers for Pat Lee artwork, it was all the rage, artists were aping his style, then POOF, no one really cared any longer. Damn, he had some talent, too!

Did you guys see the reveal of the first of the four J Scott Campbell New Mutants covers? I haven't been chasing after all of his covers, but I may go for this set, or at least a couple of them. We'll see what the next three reveals show us!

If they're anything like the last sets, we'll see different eras of New Mutants. I'm pretty excited!